Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

The devotional for today titled Reading Backwards was written by Mart Dahan.

Reading the last chapter of a mystery novel first may sound like a bad idea to those who love the suspense of a good story.

But some people enjoy reading a book more if they know how it ends.

In the book, Reading Backwards, author Richard Hayes shows how important the practice is for our understanding of the Bible.

By illustrating how the unfolding words and events of Scripture anticipate, echo, and throw light on one another,

Professor Hayes gives us reason to read our Bibles forward and backward.

Hayes reminds readers that it was only after Jesus' resurrection that his disciples

understood his claim to rebuild a destroyed temple in three days. The Apostle John tells us the temple

he had spoken of was his body. Only then could they understand a meaning of their Passover celebration never

before understood. Only in retrospect could they reflect on how Jesus gave fullness of meaning

to an ancient king's deep feelings for the house of God. Only by rereading their scriptures in light

of the true temple of God, Jesus himself,

could the disciples grasp how the ritual of Israel's religion and Messiah would throw light

on one another. And now, only by reading these same scriptures backward and forward,

can we see in Jesus everything that any of us

has ever needed or longed for?

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading comes to us from the Gospel of John,

chapter 2, verses 13 through 22.

When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts,

he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money.

So he made a whip out of cords,

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